Method:

1. Mix the espresso with the coffee liqueur; chill. 2. Melt the chocolate with 1/2 cup cream over a double boiler; cool. 3. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup cream (or 3/4 cup but remember more cream will give volume but dilute the flavor of the mascarpone) until stiff. 4. Using a hand-held whisk (a stand mixer will be too strong), whip the mascarpone with the sugar and rum until just mixed. Do not over whisk or the cheese will curdle. Fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture. Chill until firm. 5. If using a sponge cake, cut into 3 layers about 1 cm thick. I used to cut the cake into 1/2 cm layers and sandwiched them with chocolate ganache. The result was the best tiramisu ever but was too much work because the thin sponge layers broke easily. 6. Lay a layer of 10 sponge fingers into a glass dish or bowl (or a slice of sponge cake on a serving plate), spoon about 1/3 of the espresso over the fingers to soak. Spread 1/3 of the chocolate ganache over the cake and then spread 1/3 of the mascarpone mixture over. Repeat and end with a layer of mascarpone. 7. Sieve a thick layer of choc powder over the tiramisu and/or garnish with choc shavings. Chill overnight or at least 12 hours.

I’ve known Terri from Hunger Hunger for many years. We connected when both of us were featured in a local Malaysian newspaper. Once in a blue moon, Terri and I would exchange emails and I even made plans to visit her in her hometown, Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian-Borneo, but the plan never panned out. One thing is for sure, Hunger Hunger continues to whet my virtual appetite with Terri’s fabulous home-cooked meals, baking recipes, her local dining experiences and travel eats. Please visit Hunger Hunger and you will be hungry for sure as Terri tempts us with her mouthwatering content and food photography. Please don’t miss out her heavenly eggless tiramisu recipe below.

I am honored and delighted to guest post on Rasa Malaysia, one of the top food blogs that inspired me to start my own blog 4 years ago. I don’t know if Bee remembers it, but I wrote to her asking for photography tips and was thrilled to my toes when she replied me. One of her tips, which I stick to, is to use white tableware and if you dine at my house and find that all my tableware are white, blame it on Bee!

Bee and I agreed on a tiramisu post and I took quite a while to make different versions of tiramisu (green tea, green tea with choc and classic) because Italian mascarpone cheese (pronounced “mas-car-pon-nay,” not “mas-car-pon”) is flown in only once a week by a wholesaler and the hotels get the first pick. I’ve found that only Italian mascarpone—creamy-white, less dense but silkier than clotted cream with a milky flavor that reminds me of good buffalo mozzarella—makes the best tiramisu.

Tiramisu is one of the easiest desserts to make. There’s no baking (unless like me, you make your own sponge fingers or sponge cake) and all you do is just assemble the dessert like how you make an English trifle. This is a recipe I’ve adapted from a wonderful recipe called Majestic Tiramisu (from the kitchen of the Majestic Hotel in San Francisco) found in one of my favorite cookbooks, San Francisco’s Cooking Secrets. What makes the Majestic tiramisu so heavenly is the use of chocolate ganache to sandwich the sponge fingers before they are dipped into a coffee-Marsala mixture. Most recipes do not include a chocolate layer. I’ve stuck to this recipe for 15 years because I’ve not found a better tiramisu recipe than this. I’ve amended the recipe to my liking by reducing the sugar, adding coffee liqueur to the espresso, whisking the heavy cream to give more volume instead of just mixing it with the cheese. I prefer to use home-made sponge cake instead of sponge fingers especially if I’m making a tiramisu gateau. The difference is totally worth the extra effort. Sponge fingers can sometimes turn out too wet or too dry.

After my photo shoot, I ate a slice of classic tiramisu and one bite was enough to remind me why the dessert is named tiramisu, meaning “pick me up.” The blend of coffee, chocolate, mascarpone and most of all, liqueur, will pick you up even on your gloomiest day.

The great thing about this recipe is that no raw eggs are used. That means that I can serve this cake a day or two after it’s made when the cake is at its best as the flavors would’ve blended and mellowed and the cake would’ve firmed up. I’ve never liked zabaglione and raw egg yolks make me uneasy. If you do like raw eggs, you can still incorporate them into the tiramisu. Experiment with the level of sweetness and liqueur too. That’s what cooking is about, tinkling with ingredients—kitchen chemistry—to create food that please your taste buds. The key to making a good tiramisu, or any dish really, is to use the best and freshest ingredients. Get the best coffee, the best liqueur, the best chocolate, the best mascarpone and leave the tiramisu overnight for the flavors to blend. Serve it the next day and be amazed by the most awesome tiramisu you’ve ever tasted. Buon appetito!

Wud like to try the recipe but can u help: 1 cup strong expresso. Not very clear abt this. Is it 1 cup of expresso powder or do I have to mix it to get 1 cup liquid expresso. do u know of any brand. thanks alot

One look at the delicious looking photo and I knew I wanted to make this dessert. It looks incredible!

Have some questions though: if you don’t have access to/can’t afford decent mascarpone cheese, could you substitute cream cheese? Also, what size pan should be used? An 8-inch round or square glass dish? 9-inch? How deep should the pan be?

et: it’s liquid coffee, not the powder, for soaking the sponge fingers. make your choice of coffee, just stronger. I used local sabah-malaysian coffee + brazilian coffee, 2 1/2 tbsp to 1 cup.

rebecca: no no no, cream cheese can’t sub mascarpone, it just won’t be as good! cream cheese is heavy and slightly salty while mascarpone is very light, slightly sweet, smoother than butter and has a milky flavor. 9″ is good. square or round too is up to you but square will have more volume so the tiramisu will be lower but it’s ok. about 3 to 3.5″ deep is good. make sure it’s glass though or you won’t be able to see the layers. make it soon n tell me how it turned out!

Hi this looks so delicious, I keep wanting to make tiramisu but my mum freaks out about raw eggs so I usually end up not making it. I love the look of this recipe but Im in the UK and dont understand the measurements! Ive looked for converters but they are not very clear. Could you please tell me the grams and millilitre equivalent of the ingredients please? I’d be so grateful.

Hi! Tried your recipe being the third one I tried over the internet and this one seems the most successful! Thanks much! I will also try with kopi sabah since I have some sachets left. For the chocolate ganache I used plain cooking chocolate but it didn’t give me the chocolaty taste was hoping. Will use bitter sweet next time!

Eggless except for the sponge cake or fingers? ;) Sorry if that seems snarky, but it does make a difference to folks who are dealing with food allergies. This is not an eggless recipe unless you also have an eggless recipe for the cake – and if you do, I’d love to have it!

I totally agree with you. I always get so excited to see egg free recipes for some of my favorite desserts (allergy in the family) and so disappointed when the recipe pulls a switcheroo like that. Sponge cake and lady fingers are not egg free so neither is the recipe unless you provide an eggless recipe for those items. Now it is not difficult to find recipes for eggless sponge on the internet, but will the tiramisu still be heavenly? Probably not. Very misleading. The name of the recipe should be changed.

Can i omit the rum or i can replace it with kahlua? how to ensure the mascarpone does not curdle? i have tried making tiramisu with other recipe but my mascarpone always curdle. I am using an electric hand mixer

I love the presentation of your cake. How did you get the edges of the cake so straight? Did you cut it after cooling? Also, how did you prevent the cocoa powder from getting onto sides when dusting. I have baked a 10″ square cake that I am planning to torte and layer. Thanks!